And so, when Jeffreys told me the name of the boy who had accused Harry Clarke, it hit me like a physical blow. Not Harrington. Not Nutter, though Nutter had his part to play. But the third and least remarkable of that little trio: Nutter and Harrington’s lackluster friend—the tattletale, David Spikely.

Part Six

PART SIX

Aegri somnia.

—HORACE

Chapter 1

1

Michaelmas Term, 2005

Dear Mousey,

How time flies. It must be twenty-four years since I last kept a diary. I still remember it clearly; my old St. Oswald’s Prep diary; blue, with the school motto—audere, augere, auferre—in gold letters on the front. They say they’re the best days of your life. In my case, I think maybe they were.

No, don’t laugh. I mean it. I was young and healthy. I had my whole life ahead of me. I wasn’t exactly happy then; but at least I felt alive. Nowadays everything seems dead and dull in comparison. Everyone has moved forward but me. Harry’s dead; my father’s dead; even you’re dead, Mousey.

Funny, I thought you’d survive me. I saw it in the papers, you know. Family Dispute Leads to Tragedy. They flattered you more than you deserved. They always do that for the dead. You were a promising young man; clever, handsome, and popular. No one knew what you were really like. No one but me, Mousey—and maybe that fat brother of yours who knew more than he was telling. Still, it seems right for you to be dead. I might as well have died myself. Some days, I still feel like that; a drowned man, in dark water.

As for my friends at St. Oswald’s— Well. Harrington’s Headmaster now. Imagine that. Goldie, running St. Oswald’s. Charlie Nutter—Poodle, as was—never quite recovered. He’s spent most of his adult life in one institution or another. I’m glad. The little queer had no right to think that he could get away like that. From his parents, from the Church, from St. Oswald’s, even from me. What right had he to be happy? What right did he have to move on?

After leaving St. Oswald’s in January ’82, he spent six months in a Church-run retreat somewhere down in Oxfordshire, then the rest of his schooldays in a place somewhere in Wales—a nice school, with nice girls, to take his mind off Harry Clarke. For a while he did pretty well: behaved himself; played the game. I watched him all the time, from afar. Turns out I’m good at watching. They say you discover your passion before you hit your teens: if so, I’d already discovered it at seven years old, down in the clay pits with Mousey.